Tails includes an automatic mechanism to upgrade a USB stick to
a newer version. In some cases, it is impossible to do an automatic upgrade
and you might have to do a manual upgrade. This page describes both techniques.

Our upgrades always fix important security issues so it is important to do them
as soon as possible.

Both techniques only work if the upgraded USB stick, was
installed using Tails Installer. The
persistent storage on the USB stick will be preserved.

Automatic upgrade using Tails Upgrader

After starting Tails and connecting to Tor, Tails
Upgrader automatically checks if upgrades are available and then
proposes you to upgrade your USB stick. The upgrades are checked for and downloaded
through Tor.

The advantages of this technique are the following:

You only need a single Tails USB stick. The upgrade is done on the fly from a
running Tails. After upgrading, you can restart and use the new version.

The upgrade is much smaller to download than a full ISO image.

The upgrade mechanism includes cryptographic verification of the upgrade.
You don't have to verify the ISO image yourself anymore.

Requirements:

A Tails USB stick, installed using
Tails Installer.

An Internet connection.

After connecting to Tor, if an upgrade is available, a dialog appears and
proposes you to upgrade your USB stick.

It is recommended to close all the open applications during the
upgrade.

Downloading the upgrade might take a long time, from several minutes to a
few hours.

The networking will be disabled after downloading the upgrade.

If you decide to do the upgrade, click on Upgrade now,
and follow the assistant through the upgrade process.

If you missed an upgrade, each upgrade will be installed one after the
other. For exemple, if you have a Tails 1.3 and the current version
is 1.3.2, then the upgrade to 1.3.1 will be installed, and after you restart Tails, the
upgrade to 1.3.2 will be installed.

If you cannot upgrade at startup (for example if you have no network
connection by then), you can start Tails
Upgrader later by opening a terminal and executing the following
command:

tails-upgrade-frontend-wrapper

We recommend you read the release notes for the latest version. They document all the changes in this new version:

new features

problems that were solved

known issues that have already been identified

They might also contain special instructions for upgrading.

If an error occurs, the assistant proposes you to read one of the following
pages: